Backplane
Agentic hardware development environment with deterministic KiCad and STEP viewers that coding agents use to inspect designs, written in Bend.
What it does and how it connects
Backplane is an open-source workspace for agentic hardware development. The user's agent edits KiCad and FreeCAD files, and the user follows the work in board, schematic, 3D, and mechanical viewers, clicks a part, and talks about it. It works with Claude, Codex, Grok, OpenCode, Muse Code, Antigravity, Pi, and Oh My Pi in one workspace, and runs as a desktop app, in the browser, and on iOS and Android clients that connect to the hub.
The viewers show the design as the agent works: board, schematic, and 3D views with hierarchical schematics and cross-probing between views, plus a Mech view for STEP or GLB models. Design history checkpoints changes to boards and schematics, so earlier steps can be revisited, versions compared, and review comments left. The Review tab runs BOM, ERC, and DRC checks. KiCad skills from KiStack ship with the app, covering schematic, layout, footprints, BOM, and fabrication exports.
A KiCad fork built for agents, Backplane KiCad, adds board and schematic IPC APIs so agents can edit through KiCad. The user needs an agent CLI, KiCad for board and schematic work, and FreeCAD for mechanical work. When a design has a fab file, Buy it opens a thread that checks the design and gets a quote. The first run asks about anonymous usage counts in a popup; they are on by default and Settings turns them off.
What engineers report
how i fix backplane: connect failed: Service version differs from the packaged version
2026-11-05Read the original
Alternatives
Compare side by side- KiStack
Human-written KiCad agent skills, which also ship inside Backplane, rather than the full workspace with viewers and history.
- kicad-happy
Agent skills for reviewing KiCad projects, rather than a workspace where agents edit designs in live viewers.
- tscircuit
A code-based PCB toolchain in TypeScript and React, rather than an agentic workspace with KiCad and STEP viewers.
- MusubiCAD
A parametric CAD plugin for coding agents, rather than an agentic hardware workspace.
- QymCAD
A parametric B-rep CAD program the user drives directly, rather than an agent workspace.
Recurring errors it addresses
Error Index entries this tool is built to reduce or work around.
- STEP models were meshed at 0.1 mm and 0.5 rad, so a circle came out about 12-sided in the viewer. The new default on a 131-part assembly goes from 62k to 162k triangles, and reviewers were looking at a coarse copy of the real geometry.Error Index
- Among several contributor fixes, a failed CAD export now stops publication of release outputs and keeps the original error. The new export-error tests are included but haven't run.Error Index
Sources
Not verified
- Pricing: none stated on the repo or site; the ordering flow gets a quote per design, with no prices stated.
- A named individual builder beyond the repository owner handle i2cjak.
Last verified November 6, 2026. Listings are informational. The evidence score measures public, verifiable evidence and is not an endorsement or a compatibility claim.